Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on November 15, 2007, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
The performance-capture CG technology with which Beowulf was created has its pros and cons as of now, but one advantage it afforded the makers of this particular film was a less restrictive rating than it might otherwise have been given. Blood spurts, heads roll and 3D guts fly in the viewer’s face at points in this medieval monster saga, yet because it’s animated and not “real,” the movie got away with a PG-13 when it might well have landed an R with the same imagery presented in live action. Make no mistake: This isn’t a family-friendly fantasy like The Polar Express, Robert Zemeckis’ previous excursion into this realm of filmmaking, which might be bad news for certain holiday audiences but is good news for Fangorians.
Anyone who saw Beowulf & Grendel, the last screen translation of the classic epic poem, and wondered where the creatures were (Grendel was just a big, ugly guy wearing animal skins) will be more than satisfied with this significantly more spectacular take. With Sandman’s Neil Gaiman and Silent Hill’s Roger Avary doing the adaptation, it’s not surprising that this one plays the horrific elements to the hilt, and they’ve filled in the blanks of the source material in ways that figuratively and literally flesh it out. The movie opens in a Danish village where a tavern full of folks are in mid-carouse, led by King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins, clearly enjoying the opportunity to whoop it up a bit). The celebration is rudely interrupted by Grendel, here a towering, misshapen freak who cannot stand the sounds of human revelry and sets about trashing the place and the people in it.
This grotesque antagonist is Beowulf’s greatest achievement, not just a fearsome threat but also a pitiful, tortured soul who actually engenders a bit of sympathy as the film goes on. The animators have outdone themselves giving Grendel an imposing and twisted physical presence, and Crispin Glover, wailing some of the monster’s lines in barely comprehensible Old English, grants him a strange and very effective combination of animal fury and tormented personality. He’s a formidable foe to be faced by Beowulf (Ray Winstone), the Viking adventurer who arrives from across the sea to rid King Hrothgar’s land of the menace.
But there’s more to the relationship between Hrothgar and Grendel than meets the eye, which becomes the crux of Gaiman and Avary’s reimagining of the tale. This new wrinkle also makes Beowulf more intrinsically tied in to the events, as the hero confronts not only Grendel but also his demonic yet babelicious mother (Angelina Jolie) and a vicious, fire-breathing dragon. The encounters between Beowulf and the beasts, as conceived and staged by Zemeckis and his team, are effectively varied: The tussle with Grendel is intense and visceral, yet shot through with black humor since Beowulf (in the tradition of Eastern Promises’ Viggo Mortensen) fights in the nude, occasioning more strategically placed props in front of the naughty bits than we’ve witnessed since the Austin Powers films. (Seeing Beowulf in 3D, which is highly recommended anyway, compounds these visual jokes.) When Beowulf ventures into the cave of Grendel’s mom, the tone is creepy/seductive, and the climactic dragon battle is a stunner of a setpiece.
While Zemeckis and co. prove themselves as wizards of the fantastic, they haven’t quite cracked human beings yet. The characters’ features and movements have been detailed to the nth degree, yet there’s still a slight veneer of artificiality to the faces that puts a degree of removal between them and the audience. That’s not a problem in a fairy tale like Shrek, for example, but in a movie that strives for a realistic effect, it gets in the way of full engagement with its people. Certainly creating a feature entirely in the computer carries an anything-is-possible allure for filmmakers—and results in less wear and tear on the cast—but both King Kong and 300 (whose star Gerard Butler played the protagonist in Beowulf & Grendel) have proven that the same effect can be achieved by combining digital elements with real humans. Particularly problematic here are the women; Hrothgar’s, and later Beowulf’s, queen Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn) and the latter’s younger paramour Ursula (Alison Lohman) have a pallid appearance that doesn’t match the passion the actresses put into their voice performances. Easily the most compelling female character is Jolie’s sinister mother figure, as the actress revives her Eurovixen accent from Alexander and puts it to fine use for both the maternal and malevolent sides of the role.
The men fare better overall, led by Winstone, who brings authority and depth to the title role, and Hopkins, who reveals shadings in Hrothgar as the story goes on. Also notable are John Malkovich, as a smarmy doubter of Beowulf’s legend and abilities, and Brendan Gleeson as the warrior’s no-nonsense second in command. Unsurprisingly, the movie is visually intoxicating, from the fire-lit tavern interiors to the eye-filling exterior vistas to the spooky depths of the lair where Grendel and his mom dwell, all backed by a lush, powerful score by Zemeckis regular Alan Silvestri.
As mentioned above, the movie gains a lot from being seen in 3D, in which it will play at a large number of its engagements, including many in IMAX. Zemeckis takes advantage of the process to plunge the audience right into the midst of the settings and action, and has just enough objects popping off the screen to create an impact without overselling it to the point of gimmickry. This review is based on a viewing of Beowulf this way, and its impact might be a tad diminished seeing it “flat.” One other quibble: I know it’s in the nature of modern megapictures to dispense with opening credits and just get on with things after the movie’s moniker has come up, as Beowulf does, but the makers of future dimensional pictures should never underestimate the ability of a good in-your-face main-titles sequence to get the audience excited.
